October 12, 2009
After the return of Stratovarius the band started touring in May 2009
and is still on the road, now in Latin America and the Polaris World
Tour will continue until Feb 2010.

At this point we want to introduce the new drum kit which Jörg is playing since then,
on all dates in Europe. The company which makes the drums is called Kirchoff and check them out here: http://www.kirchhoff-schlagwerk.de/

Here are some recent pictures:

Here a few shots from the show in NY at Times Square/Nokia Theatre, September 16 by Marco Soccoli:

Here is a shot from Sauna Open Air by Jussi Eerola:

Also the Cymbal Set changed a bit, cymbals now in use beside the lengendary AMUN Series are:

Finnish melodic power metal legends Stratovarius are breaking the silence since guitar player Timo Tolkki left the band. They will return with a new studio album in 2009. It is a positive and powerful record that the band's fans all over the world are certain to take to their hearts.

"After Tolkki gave his blessing for us to go on without him, and after writing music together again this summer and a lot of thought, we have decided to carry the legacy of Stratovarius into the future", says Jens Johansson.

"We are all very excited about the record and about playing Stratovarius music live to our fans. We can't wait.", adds Timo Kotipelto.

The new guitar player is 25-year old Finnish guitar phantom Matias Kupiainen. Jörg Michael says, "in Matias we found new character who fits perfectly with his way of melodic guitar shredding, he is a killer player, a 'Wunderkind' from Finland!"

Tolkki's main motivation was greed
Timo Tolkki published a statement » on on April 2 this year. The other
members of Stratovarius would now like to set the record straight. You
can't argue with someone's perception of things, you can just explain
how you see things differently.

The confrontations, fights,
incompetence, tensions, negativity, bitterness, hostility, disinterest,
bad musicianship, and unfriendliness that Timo described were never
there. He constructed this alternate reality around these simple and
for him painful facts:

1) The band's momentum has been slowing since 2004.

2) The media chaos of 2004 made him lose a lot of trust and respect both within and outside the band.

3) Stratovarius' label Sanctuary had severe financial problems from 2005 on. It forced us to start a legal process at the beginning of 2007.

If you live your life through other people's eyes, declining sales or a
perceived loss of power are matters of deep, stinging personal
humiliation.

Other sad facts remain. The legal fight left us without a way to make a
new album, and financially strapped. Timo's main motivation for what he
did was greed, not issues of friendship or art.

In the summer of 2007, he presented the Stratovarius/ Revolution
Renaissance demos we had all financed and recorded to Frontiers Records,
and signed a recording agreement for a solo project. Unbelievably, he
promised Frontiers that he alone could (and would) stop Stratovarius
from being active for the duration of the R.R. project, for marketing
reasons. In exchange for this, Timo alone was paid 154,000 US
dollars.

He did this behind our backs, as we were deep in pursuit of Sanctuary
legally with a large legal bill. He still hasn't had the guts to tell
us what he did. We pieced it together from various press releases of
his and scattered email correspondence.

In October he sent us a mail saying he didn't want to continue, a quite
impersonal way after having been in the same band for 12 years. He
explained that he was tired of Stratovarius, and would concentrate on
things like his opera. We had known for some time he really hated
playing live.

He did not mention anything about his Frontiers deal, which placed the
rest of us at great financial risk. He very clearly asked that we
wouldn't contact him and try to talk him out of it, which we all
respected. He would later make much of the fact that nobody tried to
talk him out of it.

This year, Sanctuary agreed to settle, but Timo's announcement and
Timo's announcement alone ruined that, leaving us with a debt of 54,000
US dollars. The total loss is around 346,000 US dollars. There was no
reason for the timing of his announcement other than some foolish belief
it would make the promotion of Timo's project record a bit easier. What
he did to the rest of us was stupid, selfish and more than disappointing
to us since we all stood shoulder to shoulder with him financially in
2004.

Then late January, surprisingly, he proposed us playing as hired guns on
R.R. (turning it into a Stratovarius record), and doing a tour with
Jari on bass. Apparently he again had financial problems due to his
failed opera project. He then quickly dismissed the idea himself.

In short it's not so much a story of simmering discontent leading to a
wise and respectable decision. It's definitely not a story of naivité.
It's the story of Faust, the story of madness, of a band's natural and
slow decline, but in the end something mundane: the story of a supreme
narcissist going broke and betraying friends of 12 years who helped save
him a few years earlier.

Hopefully this explains the situation a little bit. Sorry if it is long
on business crap, and short on humor or music. This was a terrible,
disaapointing blow to us.

We would like to thank our fans who make it all worth it, and despite it
all, we would like to thank Timo for the past, the nice music and the
good moments.

The rest of us want to make clear that we are doing great and that we
will continue making music together, because we care about each other
and we care about our fans. We have grand plans indeed, and we will
have some very interesting news in the months ahead!

This statement is officially signed by: TK JM JJ LP
the remaining members of Stratovarius

Roadie Crew magazine - Issue # 91

September 24th, 2006

Not everybody speaks Portugese and, oh well, the translations given now and then on Stratovarius forum were... quite bad actually but thanks everyone for your efforts !

Each year, in Russia, takes place a Musical Technologies Trade Show, which is now the largest exhibition of music instruments, professional audio and lighting equipment and technologies in Russia and surrounding territories. Distributors of world name brands, as well as Russia’s top manufacturers take part in the show.

The XI International Specialized Exhibition "Music Moscow 2005" held on October 13-16 at Cultural Exhibition Center “Sokolniki” in Moscow.

Jörg, who is endorsed by Premier and Meinl, was invited by O.K.& Co. - Premier, Meinl and Vic Firth distributor on the territory of Russia and GUS countries, to perform some drum clinics. He also headlined a show with a former drummer of Santana and Mel Gaynor (Simple Minds) playing before him. Watch out the photo reports !

Jörg just drummed the next official album of italian rockers Kaledon!
The recordings took place in Como / Italia at Mirage Studio in the beginning of July and the producer was Mr. Alex Azzali, engineer Mr. Andrea Tapasso!
Check their webpage at: http://www.kaledon.com
Personal statement follows soon!

Jörg is the new drummer of Saxon!
After playing the drums on the new Saxon album "Lionheart" (release date September 20th) Jörg also will join the Lionheart world tour which will be kicking off on September 22 in Kiel/Germany!

Jörg was introduced to the Saxon Line up on their release party at the
Markthalle Hamburg on August 20 where they also performed a couple of
songs
live!
The first show they played together was one day later at the Mission Impossible festival in Sweden!

Before that Jörg had a guest appearance at the Wacken Open Air 2004 in
the
song "Crusader" during Saxon´s 2 hours show!